Selling womb for some ‘baby cash’

Selling womb for some ‘baby cash’

Nishtha Lamba

Nishtha Lamba is pursuing MPhil in Social & Developmental Psychology at University of Cambridge

It is 4 PM on a dry summer morning near the west coast of India. Six months pregnant Saira Patel relaxingly sips chai
sitting at the front lawn of a hostel. She is a surrogate, bearing a
child for a homosexual couple from Australia. They visited and approved
of her at the beginning of the contract and will visit once again before the delivery – to take their baby
home. Currently Saira lives in a hostel with fifty other surrogates
attached to a surrogacy clinic. They all share a sense of sisterhood
under the realm of their common experiences. Saira goes for her weekly
medical checkups and counselling sessions to the clinic. Her physical
& mental health, food and shelter are all being taken care of by the
intending parents sitting in Australia waiting for their child/children
to be born.

In retrospect, Saira had a completely different life. She lived in a
village near the clinic undergoing a financially unstable situation.
Worries related to roti, kapdaa & makaan gave her sleepless
nights. Dreams she had seen for her children remained unfulfilled. Her
husband could bring back little money and her in-laws complained, nagged
and harassed her for petty household issues. She could not escape nor
could she live like that forever. That is why when approached with an
opportunity to earn money by renting out her womb, she instantly said
yes. Her family also nodded in agreement due to greed and need of money.
However, they had one condition; no one could know about this or else
family, friends and neighbours would ridicule and shun them. So sending
Saira away to the clinic hostel worked best for everyone – family,
intending parents, doctors and Saira herself. This is a common story of
an illiterate and poverty-stricken Indian surrogate. Circumstantial push
compels her to step outside societal norms and traditional roles.

Gestational surrogacy (surrogate achieves pregnancy by using the
intending parent’s or donor’s gametes infused via in vitro fertilization
[IVF]) is practiced more often than traditional surrogacy (surrogate
uses her egg to achieve pregnancy). In contrast to ‘altruistic
surrogacy’, in ‘commercial surrogacy’ the surrogate receives financial
incentives above and beyond the required basic expenses of bearing a
child. Globalization and economical medical tourism has made India the
hub of foreign commercial surrogacy. Since most of the developed
countries have either a complete ban on surrogacy (e.g. France and some
states in U.S.A) or tight regulation governing its use (e.g. U.K.),
India with its minor regulations is a highly preferred market. Moreover,
the procedure costs approximately only $14, 000 in India as compared
to $70,000 in U.S.A. Estimates suggest that this industry has an annual
turnover of $2 billion, which is predicted to rise up to $6 billion in
the coming years. However, it is criticized for being a “reproductive
outsourcing enterprise” instead of being an “altruistic arrangement”.

The intellectual critics suggest that ‘exploitation’ of Indian
surrogates should be banned. They further claim that this profitable
enterprise belittles the emotions of poor women, takes advantage of
their vulnerability and makes motherhood nothing but an economic
transaction. However considering the life of an average Indian
surrogate, are these just empty words? While living their comfortable
lives, can these critics really co-equate their minds with a poor woman
trying to make ends meet? In fact, this debate branches off to more
questions. First, in a country where unpleasant social situations force
women to unwillingly become prostitutes (seeing it as a last alternative
to earn and survive); is surrogacy really a bad thing? Not only that,
people also have gone to the extent of selling their vital organs to
earn bread. If vulnerability can take such forms then, is it fair to
deem surrogacy ‘exploitative’?

Having said that, it is important to recognize that ‘exploitation’ is and always will be circumstantially relative.

Second, supply (surrogates) doesn’t emerge without demand (intending
parents). So, one cannot undermine the fact that the end result of
surrogacy is lifelong happiness for an infertile couple yearning for a
child. Third, referring to the first two paragraphs of the article, does
Saira’s quality of life seem better before or during surrogacy?
Considering the chronic social stressors and poor socio-economic
background, her life seems less stressful during surrogacy. ‘Stress
Relief Hypothesis’ rooted in psychology suggests that mental health
consequences of life transitions are moderated by preceding chronic role
problems, meaning that, in some scenarios more stress can act as a
relief from existing stress. A poverty stricken woman being promised a
better empowering future might not find it more stressful than her
current hardships. Therefore, everything is relative to one’s culture,
life circumstances and individual aspirations.

However, critics can also argue – isn’t giving up a child nurtured in
one’s womb emotionally distressing? The answer is yes, it could be, but
research also has an answer to this question. While there is dearth of
empirical work on psychological well-being of surrogates in developing
nations, a UK-based study conducted by Dr. Jadva (2003) found that
surrogate mothers are successful in seeing themselves as carrier of
someone else’s child. So, immediately one wonders, wouldn’t a woman
whose main motive is to get a better life for her own kids also
successfully see herself as a vessel?

Nonetheless, it doesn’t mean all is hunky dory in the world of
commercial surrogacy. While the economy reaps benefits of medical
tourism based on surrogacy, the government has done nothing to protect
the rights of these surrogates. On the one hand, the act of
international commercial surrogacy is considered exploitative; and on
the other hand, no steps are taken in making the process more convenient
and risk aversive for the surrogates. Policies should undertake the
following: flexibility over whether the surrogate wants to be in contact
with the child after birth, restrictions over the number of embryos
inserted via IVF as it is a painful procedure, preserving financial
fairness by offering a fixed proportion of money to the surrogate (out
of the full amount paid by intending parents) so that middlemen who have
opened ‘baby factories’ do not take advantage of their illiteracy and
vulnerability. Hence, possibility of exploitation can be wiped off if
the surrogate is assured a ‘standard suitable contract’ safeguarding her
health, emotional and financial interests.